Friday, February 23, 2007

I got stood up!!!!

Finished that book by Aron Ralston, the climber I mentioned in the last post. He has made a successful career as a public speaker, and apparently does most for charity. He is, as Jocelynmentioned, still out there doing these activities. His actions leading up to the accident do not actually seem to have been that irresponsible, aside from the fact that he didn't leave anyone an itinerary of what he was doing. His discussion of his other climbs and skis however do describe someone who is pushing the envelope a little further than is maybe sensible. No, a lot further.

There is no indication of how his accident may have altered his behavior since. I suspect he is a bit more diligent about leaving a plan behind. His friends and family would murder him if he weren't.

I was supposed to teach this morning but my student stood me up, only the second lesson so I don't know what is up with that...we have had several holidays in between so maybe she simply forgot. That however is why I had time to finish the Ralston book. Another student gave me a document that a bank here somewhere hands out to English speaking clients to give them information about getting a mortgage. The thing is filled with errors. There are major glaring grammatical problems, changes in tone that are jarring, and incorrect use of vocabulary, some of which I cannot even figure out. My student's English is not good enough that this would be a problem yet, but I am surprised that the copy-editing on a document like that isn't better. May get myself some work there too. Hmmm.

Took the mutt for a long walk this morning in anticipation of a visit to the vet, the lady from the shelter came by last night to give us all his papers, and it turns out he had not had any vaccines, so we had to go off today to do them. There is some mosquito born illness that affects dogs here and they had to get the results of that before they could vaccinate him. On the premise that a tired dog is a good dog, we marched around the hills for a little more than an hour first. He is not exactly a wild and crazy guy to start with, but....

Up on the table he was calm and quiet, she didn't have to employ any of the considerable arsenal of muzzles and restraints that were on hand. He took his shot like a trooper, and we were off. The dog that followed us in however seemed to have lost his mind entirely and was doing his best to leap everywhere simultaneously while dragging over and knocking down the two women with him. What a horrific dog. Or owners. Whatever.

Here's a question. This is the first dog I've ever had, and he is neutered, but still has *ahem* his NUTS. Is this normal? I always thought they removed the entire job lot. He seems to have been snipped rather than neutered. Que passa? I clearly haven't been checking out the back end of many dogs lately, I was just a little surprised.

The eldest child has been memorizing her multiplication tables, mine are certainly all up to speed now as well. She seems to know them now as a rhyme, we need to work on getting them in isolation. It's all progress. We had homework on the Catalan political system in Catalan last night. Well that was fun. Interpreting something I know little about, in a language I barely speak while cooking dinner. There were three pages of it, and I simply had to keep going. I think we got it all right in the end though, and I definitely learned a lot. Hope my kid did too.

The elder child is also off to a friend's house tonight after school. We had a little funny confusion about when she would come back. I think they were planning on dropping her off at around 9pm, just in time for dinner. *My goodness* We got it back to 7pm, very early here and the source of some laughter...we just aren't that Spanish yet. Tonight is also movie night, so the younger one and I are going to go up to the library after school and pick out the film for the evening. She was sort of angling for an invite with the bigger one, but I said no. She's fairly content.

Sat up on the terrace this morning reading and soaking up the warmth and sunshine...mmmmmm. Chuck was less comfortable, he was too hot in the sun and too cool in the shade and had to keep shifting back and forth between the two. It was actually pretty funny.

Graphic details coming - I believe the [test..] are simply removed from the [bag]. Hence, you might think your dog still has his "nuts."I could be wrong. (I went to check my dog but he's lying on his tummy. Just felt wrong to make him move him so I could take a peak...)

Feel free to delete this comment - it might attract some crazies to your sight from Googling!

February 23, 2007 1:42:00 PM PST

Beth used more anatomically correct terms, and then her note about deleting her...I just did a little editing to something less searchable to try to keep the 'crazies' out

Thanks Beth...I'll check him out when he gets up. A new discovery every day...never stop learning...lets see what other cliches I can come up with.

I've been in Budapest for 4 days and am only now catching up - great weekend with the rents - yum - the food is always good isn't it? OK- one major question that I'm sure everyone is wondering about........ PICTURE OF THE CHUCKSTER PLEASE!!!!!(not much of a car dog from the sound of it poor guy - how did Grandma handle that?)Nana

Beth: I have eaten dinner at 9pm at times in my life, and it is OK now and then, but with kids???? I take Chuck out for a walk AFTER I put my kids to bed, so we are talking 9:30 to 10 pm, and I always see quite young kids out and about and hear them in their houses. We're talking kids that are 4 and 5 years old!

The latest

Who???

A Canadian sailor aground in Catalonia, Spain. We used to live in Toronto, then we got on our boat and sailed down to the Bahamas where we spent most of our time for three years and now we are here in Spain, outside of Barcelona, learning the languages, eating and doing our thing.
Yup, we still miss the boat but life is good.